The Fragile

House Rules

For most rules, consult the new V20 edition of Vampire. I have a few alterations to those rules:

LANGUAGES:

Languages are treated as knowledges for the purpose of XP expenditure and level of skill.
Everybody starts the game knowing at least one language as a native speaker for free. This is the equivalent of having 3 dots in that language. Beyond that, you use your character’s Intelligence score to determine your starting language dot pool. You may invest these in as many languages or as many skill levels of one language as you like. Once allocated, these can be raised with freebies and xp as any other knowledge.
When raising languages with XP points, the cost of the language is reduced if you are already fluent (2 dots or more) in a related language. This benefit does not extend to the first dot in the language.
The language groups include Romance (latin), Germanic, Celtic, Greek, Slavic etc.

The skill levels are as follows:

0: You speak a rudimentary level of the language. You may speak with an accent and may have difficulty reading or writing it.
00: You speak the language fluently. You may still have a mild accent.
000: Native speaker. This is your mother tongue.
0000: Expert on the language. Your vocabulary and prose is admired by many.
00000: Master Linguist. Your familiarity with the language is known and you are consulted on it’s intricacies. You are likely a scholar of great importance.

BACKGROUNDS:

You can increase values in certain existing Backgrounds, or acquire certain new ones using Experience Points. This represents your character actively cultivating the background in question.

The cost of a new Background is 5 XP.
The cost of raising one is current rating x 3.

The following can only be raised or acquired through events in the story or through roleplaying, and will not cost XP:

Domain, Fame, Generation, Mentor, Status.

Disciplines:

AUSPEX:
Vampires with Auspex can attune their senses to the proximity of other Undead. He will be able to sense other Vampires, Ghouls and Revenants or even Ghosts nearby. This does require an active search (“throwing out one’s senses”), but it doesn’t require the use of a specific Auspex power (It is different to the use of the level 1 Auspex power “Enhanced Senses”). The higher the level of the discipline, the further this sense extends – roughly one mile per level of Auspex. Only those with levels of Obfuscate or similar ability can passively negate this power. Should the target have Obfuscate or similar ability, you need a higher rating of Auspex to detect them in this manner.
No details are gleaned using this power other than their presence and rough location, and whether they are Vampire, Ghoul, Revenant or Ghost.

OBFUSCATE:
Vampires with Auspex can throw out their senses to detect the proximity of other Undead (see Auspex). This ability is cancelled out passively by this discipline. Every level of Obfuscate passively cancels out one level in Auspex. Only vampires with Auspex ratings higher than the target’s Obfuscate can detect them using that ability. Any level of active Obfuscate power automatically cancels out this Auspex ability, so even if the target is only using Obfuscate level 1 “Cloak of Shadows”.

FORTITUDE: Spending a point of blood will allow you to automatically soak Bashing and Lethal Damage equal to your dots in Fortitude for one turn.

CELERITY and Running Speeds:
Celerity is not only useful for extra actions, but of course it also serves to move with blinding speeds. To quantify this in the game, I’ve created a system based on the movement speed rules (pg. 258 V20): There it lists a speed per turn based on Dexterity. Extrapolating from that, I’ve converted that into km/hour.
So here are the approximate (rounded up) speeds by Dexterity score.
Dex 1: 25km/hour
Dex 2: 28km/hour
Dex 3: 31km/hour
Dex 4: 35km/hour
Dex 5: 38km/hour
Dex 6: 41km/hour
Dex 7: 45km/hour
Dex 8: 48km/hour
Dex 9: 51km/hour
Dex 10: 54km/hour

If you have Celerity, you can spend a full action moving your full movement speed per dot of Celerity. So you simply multiply your km/hour speed by your number of full actions spent running to find your speed. You can pump your Dexterity score to increase your speed even further. Vampires with high Celerity can thus outrun sports cars for short bursts.

Bear in mind that Celerity enhanced speed requires the expenditure of a point of blood per turn used. There are roughly 20 turns in a minute. So maintaining these speeds only really works for short bursts.
Also remember that if you are injured your movement rate will be affected. If you are Injured you already halve your speed. Once you are Wounded, you cannot even run anymore. (see pg.122 V20).

NB. For the purposes of the above table, Your Dexterity score isn’t increased by unspent points in Celerity. This only affects Dex-based Dice pools, not Dex itself. So you won’t run any faster if you don’t spend your Celerity actions.

STRENGTHANDPOTENCE:
Falling:

You roll one die of bashing damage for every 10 feet you fall before hitting something solid. It can be soaked normally. Landing on something sharp or pointy will turn this damage into lethal damage (at the ST’s discretion). If you fall 100 feet or more, you reach terminal velocity. The damage effect reaches a maximum of 10 dice and is considered Lethal damage.
Armour worn functions, although at only half it’s regular rating.
Every dot in Fortitude will eliminate one die of damage, as your body is tougher and can absorb the impact better.
Every dot in Potence also eliminates one die of damage, due to your enormous strength allows you to ignore the sheer force of the impact. This also helps you land long distance jumps described below.
To land on your feet after a fall or a long jump, make a Strength + Athletics roll Diff. 6, in addition, the successes gained on this roll will also reduce the damage done by the fall.

Jumping:
(Strength, or Strength + Athletics for a running jump.)

You can jump 1’ up and 2’ forward for every dot in Strength you have. This is your starting base value which is later added to the results of your roll. Do not add your Potence score to this value. (It is included at the end of the calculation as a multiplier).

If you jump from an standing position, you roll Strength at difficulty 5. The total number of successes is multiplied by 1’ up or 2’ forward . Add base value to the result.

If you do a running jump, you roll Strength + Athletics at difficulty 3. Multiply the successes by 1.5’ up or 3’ forward. Add the base value to the result.

The total equals the number of feet travelled.

If the character has Potence, calculate as above, but multiply results by the amount of dots in Potence +1. This will result in the character achieving vast jumps.

To jump successfully, you must clear more than the distance between you and your destination. On a failure, you don’t clear the distance, but you can roll Dexterity + Athletics (difficulty 6) to grab onto a ledge or other safety as you fall. If you botch, you will plant face into the ground.
You can roll Perception + Athletics (diff. 6, 3 successes required) to accurately gauge the distance you need to jump and how many successes you will need to safely make the leap.

This chart represents the minimum strength required to dead lift without a roll. You may affect heavier weight by rolling willpower (diff 9) to advance one level on the chart. Potence gives you a level on the chart for each dot.

Throw:

Strength x 10 in meters for objects weighing 2 kg or less. (Aerodynamic objects will have larger distance increments and unwieldy ones will have lesser ones)

for every kg added, loose 1 meter. If the distance becomes 0 you can only toss it aside. If can’t lift it you can’t throw it. If you have Potence, your distance doesn’t shrink. This is to reflect Vampires throwing cars etc.

You multiply the final distance by your Potence score +1.

For accuracy, roll Dex +Athletics (diff 6 for up to half max range and 7 for half max to max range) This roll will be adjusted for environmental conditions etc.

Push/Pull:

You can push objects aside weighing up to 3 times your lifting weight limit. You can push or drag objects weighing up to 5 times you max. lift. Conditions will modify this.
Consult the lift table for Potence.

BLOODPOINTEXPENDITURE:
I allow vampire characters of Thirteenth Generation or lower to spend more blood points that they normally could; this is known as “pushing.” The character must spend a point of Willpower and take one health level of lethal damage (which can be soaked, difficulty 9); doing so allows a vampire to spend one more blood point than her normal generational limit that turn. The damage and spent Willpower reflects the strain of exceeding one’s normal capacity. Pushing is useful because it allows characters to perform astounding feats on occasion, when they really need to spend that extra blood point. However, ghouls and those of Fourteenth or Fifteenth Generation can’t push, because such weak-blooded creatures don’t have as much control over their vitae.

COSMETICS:

Vampires are timeless creatures, and as such have the hair length they had when they were embraced. Vampires have a degree of control over their physiology that humans can not match, and as a result are able to use their vitae to heal wounds sustained with relative ease. This same control extends to cosmetic changes such as hair length. If a vampire had long hair and decides to have a short cut, it is a simple matter of cutting the hair. He can grow it back by spending a point of blood. If the vampire had short hair and wishes to have long hair, the same applies. One point of blood will grow the hair to the desired length. This process happens during the day while the vampire slumbers, and cannot be done instantaneously.

Vampires may also choose to get tattoos. Essentially they remain in the skin until the vampire chooses to ‘heal’ the affected area by spending a point of blood. Such is the control of their vitae, that they can expel individual tattoos should they so wish.

FRENZY:

While in the midst of a frenzy, the Beast rises to the surface, causing the vampire’s features to become more bestial and his eyes to glow with malice